Few countries have suffered such severe deforestation over the past two decades as Cambodia, a land once covered with expansive woodlands that were home to Indochinese tigers, elephants, and scores of endemic plant and animal species. Satellite surveys show that only 3 percent of Cambodia’s primary forest remains as thousands of square miles have been lost to logging of rosewood and other tropical hardwoods, coupled with clearing to make way for rubber plantations and agricultural projects. Driving this destruction are unscrupulous businesses and black marketeers who have reportedly paid millions of dollars in bribes to Cambodian politicians, police, and military officers.
Much of the deforestation has taken place in parks and other supposedly protected areas, such as the Prey Lang Forest in northern Cambodia. As Cambodian and foreign companies have moved into these reserves, Indigenous people have been driven out, their forest-based livelihoods destroyed.
Earlier this year, Beijing-based photojournalist Sean Gallagher visited Cambodia to document the continuing destruction of the country’s few remaining areas of intact forest, including Prey Lang, one of Southeast Asia’s last lowland evergreen woodlands. Gallagher photographed members of the Prey Lang Community Rangers, a group of farmers and Indigenous people patrolling the 1,400-square-mile wildlife sanctuary in an effort to prevent illegal clearing of the forest. It’s dangerous work — in 2018, three forest defenders were shot and killed in another Cambodian wildlife sanctuary after seizing equipment from illegal loggers.
Scroll down to see Gallagher’s images, or click on the photo below to launch a slideshow.
A member of the Prey Lang Community Rangers alongside a truck hauling timber from a protected forest area. Rangers do not have the authority to confiscate illegally harvested logs, but they monitor and report on such activity.
A freshly cut tree near the Phnom Tnout Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary in northern Cambodia. The Southeast Asian nation has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world. Forest clearance is fueled by demand for agricultural land and high-value tree species for the Asian furniture market.
A Cambodian environmental ranger on patrol looking for illegal loggers in the Phnom Tnout Phnom Pok sanctuary. Some rangers hide their identity out of fear of reprisals from loggers and their allies in the police and military.
Aerial view of cut trees in the Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary.
Members of the Prey Lang Community Rangers monitoring illegal logging. Prey Lang is one of Asia's last remaining lowland evergreen woodlands.
Chainsaws confiscated from loggers in the Phnom Tnout Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary.
Confiscated rosewood in the Phnom Tnout Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary. The trade in rosewood, prized for high-end furniture in China, is outlawed througout the world, but a network of corrupt Cambodian businessmen and officials is engaged in a lucrative, black-market rosewood trade.
A Malaysian-run logging operation in the ostensibly protected Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. The government has sold concessions to national and international companies, giving them permission to clear the “protected” forests of Cambodia.
A worker at the Chup Rubber Plantation in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. Cambodia exported 282,071 tons of rubber last year, mainly to China, Singapore, and Malaysia, bringing in earnings of $377 million.
A cashew nut plantation in the Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary. Most of the sanctuary’s land has been sold by the government for agricultural concessions.
A burning field in the Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary, in northern Cambodia. Beng Per is a sanctuary in name only as most of the land has been sold by the government for agricultural concessions and rubber plantations.
This photo project was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.